Category Archives: Holidays

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and it’s a time to drag out your favorite recipes, plan a menu, and go grocery shopping. Sometimes it becomes stressful worrying if you will have enough food, who’s coming to dinner and will you get it on the table on time. Holiday meals should never become a chore but rather a celebration of family, friends and the fellowship you can share with one another.

Our family’s celebration for Thanksgiving is pretty traditional in the menu. However, it’s the contribution of each family member’s specialty that makes it more delightful and less complicated. Son—in-law, Scott Brown starts the night before by smoking a turkey that is falloff the bone tender and juicy. Everyone has their favorite part of the turkey and when my daughter-in-law came into the family, she would only eat drumsticks therefore they were reserved for her alone. The simple way to resolve this problem for the younger family members, who also liked them, was to purchase a package of nothing but drumsticks. Now everyone is happy!

Of course we have to have the traditional cornbread dressing which I make. Recently I have taught granddaughter Rachel how to make it and we usually do that together. When Don was alive I made two dressings; one regular and another with oysters which was his favorite. Kelly makes mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and of course we have broccoli rice casserole, which my South Louisiana grandkids refer to as “green rice”. Other items on the menu include a fruit salad, green salad, cranberry sauce, rolls, etc. For deserts Scott often makes a sweet potato pie and he or I have to have pecan pie with Jack Daniels in it. Now before you back away from that one, the alcohol cooks out and you are left with a delightful flavor. Kelly’s favorite is banana pudding and my niece, Janet Stanley, who is the carrot cake princess, always makes one for me. Sometimes I make 5 Minute Fudge however, my sister-in-law gave me a recipe for crock pot fudge that is so easy to make (as if the 5 Minute Fudge is difficult!). Another “must” is bread pudding with either a coconut rum or Jack Daniels sauce. Granddaughter Lauren is a wizard with cupcakes so she’s in charge of those and, sister, Judy Stanley introduced us to pecan pie muffins. Can you tell by the time the football games are on TV we’re in a sugar coma? Bring on the coffee with Kool Whip floating on top!

Now that your mouth is watering, thought I’d share a few of our favorite recipes with you.

Kookie Stanley Hemperley’s Easy Bread Pudding Large pkg. Day old Danish with pecans and raisins, 1 qt. heavy cream and 8 eggs. Break up bread and cover with cream and eggs mixing well. Let soak for a few minutes and then pour into baking dish sprayed with Pam and bake at 350 degrees until toothpick comes out clean (about 30-40 minutes). Sauce: 1 cup sugar, water to dissolve sugar, *orange or lemon juice to taste, vanilla, small amount of heavy cream and pecans chopped finely. Add all ingredients and cook down until thick. *You can substitute Cocoanut Rum, Jack Daniels or Grand Marnier. (Of course, cooking takes all the alcohol out but leaves a good flavor)

Combine first 3 ingredients in a bowl; make a well in the center of the mixture. Beat eggs until foamy and stir in butter. Add to dry ingredients stirring until moistened. Place in muffin tins (spray or coat with butter). Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Remove from pans immediately. Makes 8-0 muffins. We like these because you can eat them with your hand and don’t have to wash a dish!

As you can tell, our meal is collaboration from the whole family, which makes it more fun. And of course, each person around the table has to say what they are thankful for before we all dig in. That can be funny, sentimental or sweet. So, in closing, I’ll start this Thanksgiving season by saying, thank you Lord for family who sustain me; for friends who bring joy, for health; and for genealogy which brought me to Susie Higginbotham Reynolds who allows me to share a part of her world!

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One of my fondest memories of the magic of Christmas began when I was a small child while visiting with my grandparents, Wesley and Beulah Thompson Stanley, in the piney woods of East Texas. My aunt, uncles, cousins and our family always gathered at Granny and Pop Paw’s for Christmas.

Pop Paw worked at the lumber mill and had scouted out trees days in advance. On that particular day, a cool crisp one, he told us that if we didn’t go get a tree, Santa wouldn’t come. We eagerly jumped into the back of his old truck and headed out in search of the perfect tree.

Wes Stanley and his Christmas tree hunting truck

Being small children, we would have chopped down any tree if that was all it took for Santa to come, but Wes had something special in mind. We searched and searched. We looked at pines, which he said weren’t shaped right. We looked at cedars and he said their limbs were too flimsy and difficult to decorate. Finally he led us to the perfect tree!

It was a holly, straight, tall and loaded with bright red berries. Everyone agreed it WAS the perfect tree. He sawed it down, threw it in the back of the truck with all the kids sitting around the edge of the bed imaging what Santa would place beneath it.

Granny didn’t have much as far as decorations go; a few tangled, wrinkled icicles left over from Christmases past and some glass balls that time had faded and had very little color. But we decorated it in style! We made a paste from flour and water for glue and made paper chains for garlands, cut out paper lanterns, and the berries complimented the homemade decorations. When it was completely decorated, we were all in agreement. It was magical! Surely Santa would appreciate our handiwork and bring something special. We sang Christmas carols as the aroma of Granny’s specialty, fried apple pies, came from the cast iron stove in the kitchen.

I don’t even remember what Santa brought; I think only apples, oranges and nuts. But that tree and the fellowship we shared instilled in me the love of Christmas and family to share the magic with.

After marriage, Don and I would go to his parents on Christmas Eve to exchange family gifts. Afterwards, my sister-in-law and I would load the kids into a car and take them to see Christmas lights while Don and his brother were busy at our houses putting bikes together and the toys from Santa under the tree which we had gone to the woods and cut down. To the kids, the ride was magical to see the lights others had decorated their yards and homes with. The children never caught on as to why the dads didn’t go with us.

As years passed we set aside one afternoon a couple of weeks prior Christmas to go to the woods and, as Wes would do, chop down a special tree. The kids were almost as excited as I. Usually we cut down a cedar.

But the one thing that had changed was that I now had fallen for flocked trees. Don and Steve would flock the tree as Kelly and I covered our ears from the words Don would utter as the flocker stopped up or the vacuum hose would crimp and the flock would either come out in gobs or not at all. Nevertheless, we had flocked trees. And the bigger the better! Most times they had to be tied to the beams of the den to stand erect after being heavily decorated. Sometimes we made paper chains. Sometimes we baked gingerbread men for ornaments. And despite all of Don’s fussing about having to flock the tree, when it was fully decorated, he never failed to say, “It’s the most beautiful tree we’ve ever had.”

Santa always came on Christmas Eve when the kids were small therefore they only had a gift or two from Mom and Dad. After they had outgrown that stage, I would wrap and put the gifts under the tree, where they would shake, rattle, smell and make a million guesses.

Some of the magical moments that are dear to me are granddaughter Rachel’s first
Christmas.

Emy’s visit with Santa.

And the happy faces of Christmas.

Surprises always came packaged differently and one never knew if your big gift would be under the tree, in your stocking, or in the form of something warm and fuzzy.

Don and I always had an Open House where a roaring fire on Christmas Eve warmed friends who would stop by for a bowl of gumbo and beverage. Sometimes we had to wait until they left before Santa came. Sometimes they stayed to see what surprises he would deliver to the Hemperley kids.

I have so many magical memories of Christmas in my lifetime; like the year we were so broke that all Don could afford for me was a pair of house shoes. I don t think I gave him anything.

Or, our first Christmas after he returned home from Japan and we were stationed in Maryland. Maryland had a record snow fall that year, so we bundled up Steve, who was about a year and a half, and played in the snow building a snowman and having snowball fights.

Or the year he surprised me with a color TV and I sat up well after the three stations we could receive went off air and watched the test pattern until the wee hours!

Or many Christmases when the house was so full of relatives, home for the holidays, that we would run out of beds and couches for them to sleep on. Santa must have had a difficult time delivering gifts for there were pallets or sleeping bags on every inch of floor.

Much has changed in my celebration of Christmas. Some loved ones are now gone. I no longer go to the woods for a tree to flock. In fact, this year I put up a flocked fake tree!!!

My kids now have kids and are now Santa!

We still open gifts on Christmas Eve and have gumbo for supper. However, Kelly now cooks it and I can sit back and enjoy the night.

I no longer have kids sniffing or sleeping under the tree. My dog has taken over that job!

The magic of my Christmases began many years ago with my grandfather taking all the grandkids to cut a tree. It’s in my heart. It’s in my memories. It’s with my family. It’s who I am and where I came from.

May we all remember the true meaning of Christmas. May we all remember the past, cherish the present, and look forward to a Christmas that is magical this and every year.

Merry Christmas!!!

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about.me

My name is Kookie.

Growing up in the ‘40s, we (my three brothers and I) played games like Red Rover, Red Rover, Hide and Seek (also known as Ghost in the Graveyard) and Blind Man’s Bluff. While genealogy is no game to me, I feel as if these game names could apply when I call on a lead and ask if I can “Come Over, Come Over”; ramble around graveyards looking for genealogical clues; or that I am blindfolded when groping for an ancestor that has become my brick wall. My goal is to break that wall down before I “Kick the Can”!